A Girl's Writing Is Never Done (c) Shauna Gilligan 2025
How wonderful to find a review in the Irish Times (6th April) of the Arlen House Anthology Tearing Stripes off Zebras edited by Nessa O’Mahony. The review highlights the quality and variety of the work, and I’m delighted to have a short story in it. The anthology is dedicated to the memory of Eavan Boland.
Mel Ulm’s blog about books, literature and writers The Reading Life, rightly declares itself “a multicultural book blog, committed to Literary Globalism”. It often provides insight into short fiction from around the world. In one of his recent blog posts he reviews my short story “Sybil’s Dress”, published this Spring in The Cabinet of Heed (Issue 19). Mel kindly describes it as “a marvelous story”, one which prompted him to find out about the real Sybil Connolly.
I’m delighted to hear that Mel Ulm has featured my story “Thirty-Five-A-Night” (published in Crannóg 47) on his literary blog The Reading Life.
It’s always interesting to see the gaps that appear between authorial intention, reader comprehension and then the reader’s analysis. Cultural references are also key to understanding fiction and in this case, Mel picks up on the importance of the ending – which is where the key is to the age of the protagonists.
You can read his post here and I’d recommend staying a while and browsing through Mel’s incredible collection of posts on fiction (and poetry) from all over the world.
Read my story “Thirty-Five-A-Night” in Crannóg 47
Shauna Gilligan Writer 